BP Says Energy Industry Better Prepared After Its Gulf of Mexico Oil Spill

BP Plc said the oil industry is better prepared to respond to a major offshore spill because of equipment and systems developed after the April 20 Deepwater Horizon rig disaster.

Innovations include equipment to cap a well that, after several misses and partial successes, stopped the gusher in July, BP said in a report to Michael Bromwich, director of the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation and Enforcement. The bureau, part of the U.S. Interior Department, released the report today after executives with the London-based company briefed Bromwich.

The bureau will use information from the report in its recommendation to Interior Secretary Ken Salazar on “any appropriate modifications to the scope or duration” of a deep- water drilling moratorium set to expire Nov. 30, according to an e-mailed statement.

BP Chief Operating Officer Doug Suttles and Richard Morrison, vice president of operations, briefed Bromwich today, almost a month after the report was requested, the agency said.

Equipment developed to contain the spill include five “Sand Shark” vehicles that aid beach cleanup by digging deep enough in sand to capture below-surface oil, BP said. Removing oil from the surface was aided by four “Big Gulp” skimmers, based on a design by a barge owner who added gear to handle emulsified oil and sea grass, it said.

BP injected cement into the top of Macondo last month. The company today began removing the cap equipment and replacing the blowout preventer, a precursor to pumping cement from the bottom and permanently plugging the well.

To contact the reporters on this story: Jim Polson in New York at jpolson@bloomberg.net; Jeff Plungis in Washington at jplungis@bloomberg.net.

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